Feeling their pain

The parallels between the plight of today's LibDem activists and that of many Labour supporters during the Blair years.

Contribution by Councillor Bob Piper*

Ed Miliband’s appeal for those Liberal Democrats dismayed by the coalition with the Conservatives may attract some waverers, but I doubt it will lead to the complete demise of the Lib Dems that some people are predicting.

Personally I have a sympathy with those on the radical wing of the Lib Dems who feel betrayed by Clegg, Alexander and co. They will have spent years listening to their leaders in opposition decrying “the two main parties” and promising nirvana if only they were in power. Ok, most will surely have accepted that getting power in their own right was not achievable in the short term, but they hung on to the belief that they could hold the balance of power in a coalition. And so it came to pass. But I doubt many Lib Dem members thought that entering a coalition would result in their MPs accepting a complete u-turn on issues like tuition fees. Accepting a review of Trident is one thing, they may even have accepted that the Tories and Labour, whichever they joined up with, would combine to ensure Trident was renewed. But to see their leaders vociferously arguing for a measure which they had spent over 10 years decrying… that was not what they were expecting.

The reason I have some sympathy is that some of us in the Labour Party have been there and bought the t-shirt. We spent the best part of two decades on platforms condemning the Thatcherite market-led NHS reforms, the privatisation of public services, the anti-trade union laws, the Private Finance Initiative etc. Then we suddenly discovered that these things were not going to be reversed, but worse, they were actually at the heart of Blair’s New Labour party. I remember only a few months in to the Labour Government of 1997, when the euphoria was still pumping through Labour veins, moving a resolution at UNISON’s Affiliated Political Fund conference calling for a halt to PFI schemes. The resolution was passed but was opposed by two leading lights of the union, Dave Anderson and Ann Picking (both destined to become Labour MPs) which made me uneasy at the time. And also opposed by Keith Vaz who, without a hint of shame or irony, told the conference that previously we had quite rightly opposed ‘Tory PFI’ …this was different… it was ‘New Labour PFI’!!!

And this was years before Blair’s wars and infatuation with Bush, or plans for 90-day internment, or ID cards and all of the other authoritarian post-9/11 measures. You know, those things that Ed Miliband confessed were errors or misjudgments during his leadership bid.

So, if there are Lib Dems out there thinking of packing it all up, my message to you is don’t despair. Clegg may be just a blip, a small hiccup in the long history of your party. Stick to your principles and one day you may be secretly stifling a smug grin as speaker after speaker stands up to denounce Clegg and his ilk and all of their crypto-Tory machinations.

In closing though, comrades, I have no wish to form a coalition with you. We should both want to trample the Tories in to the dirt and ensure a permanent democratic socialist/social democrat political future for Britain. A strong Liberal Democrat opposition to what you perceive as the excesses of a Labour Government should be the short term aim, not the shabby little compromise you now find yourselves locked in to.

Of course, for those who really don’t have the stomach to endure five years of the current horror show… I’m told our membership is still open to applications.

*This article was originally posted at Councillor Bob Piper.

Why party politics is a pathetic joke

The three main parties have switched policy on tuition fees more often than tennis players swapping ends at the end of every game.

Wherever you stand on tuition fees, the recent debate said an awful lot about the world of party politics. And if you think this sounds like a bit of a swiping statement, just take a look at a few simple facts.

No matter which major party you look at, what you have staring at you in the face is politicking and opportunism of the worst kind.

It's a joy to behold when LibDem MPs and activists alike turn overnight into staunch defenders of the brand new Super-Expensive Higher Education system. The very same people who for years (and until the other day) were ranting against fee-paying universities as if it would mean the Apocalypse.

Read this BBC report from 2003. Look at the bit where the LibDems education spokesman slams the Labour government for the "nonsensical notion that all graduates suddenly become high earners". And then this: "Saddling students with a mortgage-style 20-year debt creates a huge disincentive for higher education". It's going to be "mortgage-style debts", is what the Lib-Dems shouted til the other day.

Not only that. The LibDems were also warning of the dangers of "[the] market [being] introduced into higher education". "Top-ups wil deter students", they protested.

Today Clegg & co would tell you it's not ideal, but it's ok. "You don't have to pay up front" must be one of their most quoted statements in defense of the new system.

Except that's exactly how the Labour government sold a very similar policy to parliament a few years back.

"[The students] will make a fair contribution to the cost but only after graduation, through the tax system, on the basis of ability to pay", said Tony Blair in a speech in January 2004, adding that "[tuition fees] do not penalise the ordinary taxpayer".

Now you hear Harriet Harman attacking Coalition plans to "dump the cost on to students". Which is amazing, because while she was in government and Labour was doing exactly the same, her colleague and then-Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson defended trebling tuition fees. "I just reject the notion that working-class kids are more debt averse than youngsters from other backgrounds", he told the Independent.

And when you read what Charles Clarke mumbled about "growing pressure on public budgets", you could be excused for thinking it was one of the current ConDem ministers talking. "There is no alternative", sentenced Charles Clarke. Just like what David Cameron said the other day.

Which leads us to the Tories. Back when Labour trebled tuition fees, they were frothing at the mouth. "Have the Tories become Old Labour?" wondered a BBC report in 2004, with reference to the Conservatives' proposal "to abolish tuition fees"!

Back in 2003, then-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith pledged that all university tuition fees would be abolished under a future Conservative government, condemning them as "a tax on learning". Seriously.

A year later, then-Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green called for tuition fees to be scrapped altogether. "This would help students avoid the burden of long-term debt which deters increasing numbers of poorer students from applying to university", he said.

In opposition, current Coalition Minister Kenneth Clarke said "It is the ordinary student from the ordinary family [...]who will carry the burden of tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt [...] Does [the Labour government] seriously expect that that will have no effect at all on the willingness of such people to go in for the more expensive courses in higher education?".

Well, apparently not. According to his current government colleague and fellow Tory Michael Gove, "[higher fees] won't put off students". Fancy that.

It really must take some stomach to still put up with it. How do you do tribalism? How can anyone keep up with all the somersaulting without getting a headache or feeling at least an inkling of nausea?

How can anyone still happily believe and justify either of the three parties while they engage in their pathetic exercise of swapping ends in the style of tennis players at the end of every game?

Because the truth is theirs is a world were both principles and respect for voters mean absolutely nothing. And tuition fees are just an example. The hopes of ordinary people can be trampled over and their good faith abused whenever and wherever convenient.

Which is why the non-voting contingent has just recruited a new follower.

Tony Blair, a repulsive individual

The former PM, also known as the Master at the art of wriggling out, is back.

We must have been out of practice.

For three years we forgot what it was like to be regularly subjected to that patronising, oily, messianic style, self-righteous arrogance and self-pity. The subtle, three card trickster-like manipulation of the truth. The ideological dogmatism. The spectacular lack of analytical depth, so blatant that you may even start wondering if the guy is for real.

Now, suddenly, Tony Blair is back and his words are hitting the political world like puke showered all over a toilet seat.

With the publication of his own memoirs A Journey, the former PM reignited a series of controversies: from the Iraq war to his feud with Gordon Brown, or from Labour Party politics to Princess Diana.

Most striking of all is how shallow and black-and-white Tony Blair's reading of events appears to be. Let's look at some of the former PM's revelations.

1) Blair claims that Labour won three elections "when it was New Labour" and lost in 2010 "because it stopped being New Labour".

Like many a time in the past, his reading of history is two dimensional. In his view, Labour's victories of 1997, 2001 and 2005 are to be credited exclusively to his own Midas touch and his New Labour pet project. The 2010 defeat, instead is the obvious "disaster" wreaked by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Nice, simple and linear.

The reality is that Tony Blair is conveniently shunning at least 900,000 other factors. For instance, the fact that between 1997 and 2005 the Tories reached rock bottom, torn apart at the seams with infighting and lack of leadership.

It's common knowledge that, especially in 1997, even a donkey at the helm of the Labour Party would have mopped the floor with what was left of John Major's Conservatives.

Similarly, Blair glosses over the fact that voters anywhere tend to be fed up with parties who've been in office for a decade and a half. Which, combined with an unprecedented economic crisis (but that's too complicated, isn't it Tony), may have just about played a part in Labour's partial defeat on May 6.

Most importantly, he mentions nothing of the decimated party membership and the 4 million voters (that is FOUR MILLION) that Labour lost between 1997 and 2005 - that is to say, under Tony Blair's expert watch.

Nothing, however, displays Blair's lack of touch with ordinary people as much as his belief that 30 million UK voters were going to interpret the 2010 ballot as a battle centred around whether Labour was still "New Labour" or not.

Leave aside the fact that, like John Prescott confirmed today, the Brown government "didn't disown" New Labour: most people who turned their back on Labour didn't give a flying thought over the semantics of the word "New". They were just fed up with a very tired government dulled by years of u-turns, dodgy decisions and one betrayal too many.

2) Tony Blair endorsed David Cameron's handling of the financial crisis, adding that he still opposes Labour's 50p tax rate. He praised the coalition as a "Tory version of New Labour" and claimed that rather than simply attacking the coalition's cuts, Labour must offer plans to make different but "more radical" savings in government spending.

But while the former PM repeats the mantra that anything remotely to the left of New Labour would be electorally damaging, he fails to mention that the 50p tax rate is backed by the clear majority of voters. It's no coincidence that even the Tories are not laying a finger on it.

As for the rest, it's further evidence that Blair went down in history as the party leader most at odds -ever- with the views of his own Party's members. What the fuck he was doing in the Labour Party in the first place remains one of the great mysteries of late 20th century politics.

Of course, Tony would sooner mouth off about some unspecified concept of "reform" than face up to the risks of constantly humiliating Labour's traditional supporters with the only purpose of retaining power.

Yet history is staring at him in the face. He stayed at the helm right until the moment when his party haemorraged one vote too many and the Tories started looking electable again. That moment he conveniently made for the exit door.

Whoever was going to succeed him had to mop up the mess of a hollowed-out party grappling with an identity crisis and a reinvigorated opposition.

3) "Britain got what it wanted in May 2010 - a Tory version of a centrist government", Blair said in an interview this morning.

Did it really? And yet a glimpse at this page will show that the Tories were picked by just 1 out of 3 voters, while parties campaigning under a "progressive" manifesto were chosen by at least 55% of the electorate. But don't you let your analytical skills stand in the way of sloganeering, Mr Blair.

4) Blair warned that "the danger for Labour now is that we drift off, or even move decisively off, to the left. If we do, we will lose even bigger next time".

Again, the old mantra. Fair enough the 1980s have been going through extensive reappraisals, but Blair seems to be seriously obsessed with the era of the Cold War and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. In his view, anything that isn't stealing the Tories' clothes is tantamount to guaranteed electoral wilderness.

Yet Blair could do with remembering the one humiliation that hit him in 1999-2000 at the height of his power, when he used every trick in the book (or not) to stop Ken Livingstone from running as London Mayor.

Nevermind every single opinion poll pointed at Ken winning any contest hands down. Nevermind the overwhelming majority of the London Labour Party wanted him to run. Tony Blair publicly repeated that Livingstone as Mayor would be a "disaster" and a return to the "old" and "extremist" policies of the 1980s. Such was the hostility and the control freakery that Ken was kicked out of the Labour Party.

To cut a long story short, Livingstone ran as an independent and still triumphed - alone - in a three-pronged battle against the official Labour candidate, the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems.

Talk about Tony's magic touch and political acumen, eh?

5) On to the most devastating legacy of the Blair years, Iraq. While only the most deluded of people may have expected the multi-million-making former PM to apologise or engage in a factual step-by-step analysis of what went wrong, absolutely nobody could have anticipated the following idiotic comment:

"I can say that never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded".

Because of course, Tony, a Prime Minister who's just decided to go to war while signing away the future of thousands of servicemen and god knows how many civilians is just supposed to "guess", right?

Sod forecasting complications, plan B and plan C, let alone looking at intelligence without twisting it to the point of ridicule. He just "never guessed", the twat.

While Tony Blair was busy not guessing, like Mehdi Hasan wrote in the New Statesman, "[s]ix of the country's top academic experts on Iraq and international security warned TB, in a face-to-face meeting in November 2002, that the consequences of an invasion could be catastrophic" and "the Joint Intelligence Committee warned TB in February 2003 that the threat from Al Qaeda would be heightened by military action against Iraq".

6) Finally. You may remember that Tony Blair became Labour Party leader and then PM because his predecessor John Smith died of a sudden heart attack in 1994. So what does he write in the most cringeworthy, psychotic, delusional, tactless fashion?

"Of course, I had no knowledge that John would die prematurely. Except that, in a strange way, I began to think he might... I said to (Cherie): 'If John dies, I will be leader, not Gordon. And somehow, I think this will happen. I just think it will.' Is that a premonition? Not in a strict sense; but it was strange all the same. On Saturday afternoon we went to see Schindler's List..."

What a prick.

Two months after the vote: towards a General Strike?

Part six. The Tories are pushing full steam ahead with many of New Labour's least popular policies. Now it's time to fight back, explains Dave Semple.

[This is a guest post]

Prior to the election, I wrote a piece asking people to support TUSC - the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. In the immediate aftermath of the election, like so many others, I was buoyed by what seemed a shocking victory by Labour - yes the vote had been slashed and the parliamentary majority had been lost, with Labour dropping to second-party status but it didn't quite feel like a defeat.

Despite my previous resignation of Labour membership, despite the constant barrage of attacks by the tabloids and despite Lib-Dem pre-game triumphalism about a drop to third place, Labour defied expectations and I was euphoric. This was supplemented by the electoral annihilation of the BNP across Barking and Dagenham and other areas, whatever our rational selves were saying about the unsustainability of such a rout.

Yet that initial euphoria has since given way, as it would have had Labour stayed in government. Thousands of us watched David Cameron's journey to Buckingham Palace, dejectedly staring at our screens while the Prime Minister to be went inside, and was saluted by the Palace guards as he came out. We felt bitter and angry, for despite everything, led on by Left Lib-Dems, we'd hoped for a Lib-Lab pact.

However unrealistic, these were the hopes of a million people around the country. However much we knew in our hearts that the Libs and Labour would immediately set to writing their own 'austerity' package, something inside us rebelled at the idea of a Conservative government. And the last two months have proved that our hope was the correct one - as the swingeing cuts and millions of projected job losses testify.

The one positive aspect to the situation is a resolute hardening of attitudes against the Liberal Democrats. People who might once have considered voting or even joining them have been pushed away by the Lib-Dem decision to go into government with the Conservatives. The phrase 'the Left', after so many embarrassing urgings to vote Lib-Dem by various bloggers and pundits, can now refer only to a backbench rump in Labour, and the socialists.

What's the next step? We already know that the Tories are pushing full steam ahead with many of New Labour's least popular policies. Except they're going further. So the part-privatisation of Royal Mail is now wholesale privatisation of Royal Mail. The public sector is going to haemorrhage jobs - against which dubious OBR predictions, of economic growth to pick up the slack, will not count for much. Communities and workers are in for a battering.

So the fightback must begin. This week Bob Crow, leader of the Railway, Maritime and Transport union called for a General Strike. The distance between where we are now and the actualisation of such a demand is incalculable. We have the institutional conservatism and bureaucracies of the unions to overcome, we've got some sort of mass political organisation to forge (or reforge, in deference to the Left still in Labour) and we've got millions to mobilise.

All very pie-in-the-sky you might say, and you'd be absolutely right. But the alternative is ensconcing ourselves in comfy armchairs to watch as Labour's 'leadership' attempt the obscene tactic of outmanoeuvering the Tories from the Right.

We must realise that the only thing which will stop the government and its partners in Europe dragging our countries to the right by further destroying the unions and communities through increased casualisation of labour and decreased redistribution of wealth is the solid kick in the groin that simply standing up and refusing to go along with it delivers. So, all out, all out. Or else the next stop, after another 18 years of Thatcherism, is New Labour Mark II.

Dave Semple blogs at Though Cowards Flinch.

Two months after the vote: the next five years

Part five of our post-election series. Today, Left Outside analyses the Left's future prospects.

[This is a guest post]

Throughout the election I did my (small) bit for democracy by delivering leaflets for my local Lib Dems. I've always found leaflets a little annoying, but then, as I'm not a Lib Dem I didn't feel comfortable canvassing for them yet I wanted to help defeat the incumbent Tory.

I cast my ballot for David Rendel and waited up until 4 in the morning to hear that he'd been defeated. Here I suppose I could rant that a Tory was always going to win in the end anyway, but I don't want to.

I would still vote the same way as before and I would still get out there and try to support the Lib Dems. I'm under no illusions, they are not a party of the left, but I am as much a Liberal as I am a Socialist and even if the Liberals sacrifice their pretensions of leftism at least we can hope they will somewhat neuter the social reactionaries in the Tories.

Although this position puts me in the mind of this Beau Bo D'Or picture, with hindsight it seems the best I could hope to achieve on May 6th, and grim pragmatism has always been the way I have approached elections.

To begin however there is still a lot with which to be disappointed. The Tories are going to reduce the deficit too quickly and this is going to damage the economy; the Lib Dems are sadly acquiescing in this. The anti-deficit vanguard have taken control, despite the deficit of evidence to support their position.

Of course, this being the Tories there is also some hypocrisy to worry about. The Tories claim to be worried about debt, yet they have pledged to reduce immigration, something which will make the debt burden worse and trend GDP growth lower. Two of my main concerns, a chance for a decent living for me, and a chance to give a leg up to those unlucky enough to be born within different borders have been dealt a severe blow.

The positive side of this election is less clear. But I do think it offers a chance to regroup, although I appreciate this may be me taking refuge in a cliché.

There will likely be 5 years to get the left's electoral platform in order, and that means the Labour electoral position. The Labour Leadership contest is leaving me somewhat nonplussed - especially since the exit of John McDonnell, but it is not the distance of the election that leaves me uninterested. For me the next 5 years are not about getting elected, they're about fighting for services.This is for pragmatic and strategic reasons.

We will enter the next election in an odd position; normally a government has to lose an election, an opposition rarely "wins" it. Nobody won the last election and this puts the left in a strong position. Rather than wait for the Government to fail the left can spend 5 years presenting an alternative.

This is how I want to see the next 5 years spent; the Labour party spending some time becoming a party of the people rather than one claiming to be for the people despite evidence to the contrary; bloggers fact checking the government; unions defending their members; the public protesting for their services and the Tory's cuts delayed.

Click here to visit Left Outside's blog.

Two months after the vote: the Labour view

Part three of our post-election series. Today, Don Paskini explains why there is still plenty of hope for Labour.

[This is a guest post]

If you want a glimpse of the future of politics, it’s worth looking at Oxford. Oxford had been the only seat in the south east to reject Thatcherism in 1987, and by 2004, people had had enough of New Labour.

In both cases, this was three years before growing unpopularity forced these leaders out of office. Labour was hammered by the Liberal Democrats in the 2004 local elections, and in the 2005 General Election, a majority of more than 10,000 was slashed to just 963.

What Labour did in Oxford after 2005 provides a template for what could happen over the next five years across the country.

Firstly, they learned the campaigning lessons from those councillors who had managed to get re-elected in 2004, and made sure that in every part of the city there were hard-working Labour activists keeping in touch all year round and helping people, and that locally Labour was in touch with the views of local people on every issue from opposition to the war in Iraq to the need for action to solve the city’s appalling housing crisis. As part of this, they managed to persuade some of the most effective and hard-working Lib Dem councillors to join Labour.

Secondly, they used this experience and connection to the grassroots to develop popular policies which helped improve people’s lives.

Labour in Oxford were one of the first authorities to introduce free swimming for young people in 2006, and to pay the Living Wage to low paid workers in 2009. They massively expanded holiday activities for young people in deprived areas, which gave young people something fun to do and which cut crime and anti-social behaviour by half, and expanded recycling services.

When the Lib Dems tried to close playgrounds in order to keep council tax down in 2008, Labour fought the council elections on slightly higher council tax rises to refurbish every play area in the city – and won. The local MP worked with local residents to campaign for new regulations on bad landlords, and managed to get the law changed. And Labour councillors managed to do all of this while making efficiency savings equivalent to 25% of the council’s entire net budget.

There was a virtuous circle here. The more time that Labour activists and councillors spent calling round to listen to people and help them, the better they got at developing popular and effective new policies. And the more people that they helped, and the better they got at developing new policies, the more people got involved in their community campaigning.

In contrast, after 2005 the Lib Dems moved steadily to the Right. Their main local campaign message in the 2010 election was that Tories needed to vote tactically to beat “Gordon Brown’s man”, a strategy which led to them securing the coveted endorsement of the Oxford University Conservative Association.

In the wealthiest areas of Oxford and amongst people who don’t rely on public services, the LibDems did extremely well. But across the rest of the city, Nick Clegg’s plans for savage cuts and replacing the NHS with competing insurance providers went down very badly, and people rallied to support Labour. Labour got 36% of the vote in Oxford East in 2005, the same share as it received nationally. In 2010, Labour got 29% across the country and 42% in Oxford East.

What was heart-breaking about the 2010 election was seeing how many decent people across the country were conned by Lib Dem spin and Labour's many failings into supporting a party which talked a good game, but which relished the chance to abandon any kind of principle in the rush to form a Right-wing alliance with the Tories. But what was exhilarating was seeing that grassroots community campaigning, based on the principles of unity, hard work and Labour values, really does work.

Don Paskini blogs here.

Two months after the vote: from Lib-Dems to Labour

Has public opinion shifted at all since May 6? As part of a new series, we explore how feelings have changed (or not) since the general election. Today, Daniel Hoffmann-Gill explains why he almost turned his back on UK politics.

[This is a guest post]

This year’s General Election seems long ago now, I’ve filed it far away in the recesses of my mind, politics, in the UK at least, has lost it’s luster for me and I’ve now gone back to obsessing about American exceptionalism, female genital mutilation and South African crime rates.

What killed it for me was voting Liberal Democrat, as I did in 2005, as they represent (or so I thought) my views the closest and then had to watch the bastards power-grab a horrible little deal with the dreaded Conservatives.

But before I turned my back on UK politics in an extraordinarily tedious fit of pique, I did something quite dramatic: I joined the Labour Party.

I was raised in a very Tory household and as soon as I could I wanted to vote Labour, because it seemed to me the team in blue represented something cruel, mean-spirited and negative; features all shared by my Tory father. So from 1994 onwards I was a devout Labour boy and only when they broke my heart by getting us into an illegal and terrible war, as well as a catalogue of human rights infringements and a slow and horrible metamorphosis into a cruel, mean-spirited and negative political party (are we really turning into America with no choice at all between the Devil and the very deep, very blue and terrifying sea?), I turned to my ideological bed-fellows: the Lib Dems.

It seemed a perfect policy fit and with the election this year the golden bastards actually stood a chance of winning. Thanks to the archaic joys of our electoral system and also not as many people voting for them as expected (always a problem in an election) they were left as kingmakers and decided, even though 15.4 million Brits had voted for left of centre parties rather then the 10.7 million that had turned blue, to back David Cameron and his entourage.

Ouch. That hurt.

And I mean really hurt. And perhaps my hurt is irrational, flawed and riddled with an utter loathing of the Tories and everything they stand for and perhaps, in a stumbling through kind of way, the current Con-Dem alliance is doing alright (even though VAT increases kill us all, especially the poor and why some focused tax hikes on rich folk like me aren’t an option I’ll never know) but I voted for a party of the left, a liberal party because I was sick to death of Labour’s Tory transformation and my vote was betrayed. Where has the left gone?

And yes, I did just say betrayed, for this is a love affair and Nick Clegg has given me chlamydia.

So I decided to cheat on him with my old lover (this relationship and sexual transmitted disease metaphor is starting to run aground isn’t it?) and commit because I see no other options for those of us on the left to turn to, options that actually have power within their reach, rather than hopes and dreams. What use are they?

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill is an actor and writer. He blogs at Blurred Clarity.

Why Abbott or Ed Miliband can revive Labour

Why a clear break from New Labour without going too far to the left is the only hope for the party.

With the nominations closing on Wednesday, the quest for the new leader of the Labour Party is now officially underway.

Thanks to David Miliband's last-minute gasp of generosity, the contest was handed a lease of life with the addition of the only contender who doesn't fit the template of a fortysomething white middle-class male opposing two fortysomething rich white males already in government (Cameron and Clegg).

Diane Abbott ensured that there is still a glimmer of hope in the Labour Party and that the millions of activists, voters and supporters who took a battering after the other during Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's era have not been shut off completely.

The background is simple. True, like some die-hard New Labourites point out, their party managed an unprecedented 13 years in power and three consecutive election victories. But, if you excuse my analogy, it's like a fat bloke stuffing his face without checking whether the amount (or quality) of food he's guzzling is going to give him the shits or make him sick.

The consequences of Blairism on the party and its identity have been devastating.

Since 1997, Labour lost a staggering five million votes as well as more than half its membership. Just to give you an idea, in the period 1997-2007, around 230,000 people chucked their Labour Party card into the bin.

Not only that. In constantly sticking two fingers up at its grassroots voters, the Party lost credibility. It doesn't know where it stands anymore. On many issues, such as civil liberties - but also aspects of the economy, the environment and, more recently, immigration - it even slipped to the right of the Tories. On others, like workers' rights, the job market and empathy with the not-so wealthy, it left millions of potential voters with nowhere else to turn to.

The general perception (though by no means exclusive to Labour) is that the party is now the monopoly of a specific breed of professional politicians: bureauspeaking middle-class policy wonks whose only route to Westminster is a self-perpetuating career in research, think tanks and policy units.

It was telling that, in the run-up to May 6, Gordon Brown and his inner circle would constantly cling on to Labour's few progressive achievements (i.e. the minimum wage, SureStart, LGBT rights, tax credit) in a last-ditch attempt to garner enough support.

Someone should tell Ed Balls and David Miliband. If the New Labour project wasn't, after all, so bad...why didn't they centre their election pitch around their least Labour achievements? Why didn't they walk around replaying slogans like "we're-intensly-relaxed-towards-the-filthy-rich" or "we-need-more-millionaires"? Why didn't they remind voters of the beauty of 42-day detention, top-up fees, the Iraq war, peerages for bankers, PFI, City deregulation and the third runway at Heathrow?

Which is why a clear break from New Labour is the only hope for the party. And it can only come from two out of the five candidates.

One is Diane Abbott, a maverick MP with a good media profile who speaks like an intelligible, normal human being. Placed against the Cleggeron white male upper-class clones, she would certainly stand out as a more ordinary person.

But Abbott's strongest points are not just presentational.

People appreciate politicians who speak their mind. And Diane Abbott has never been afraid to speak against people in power, even if they belonged to the same party. She was never part of any New Labour government; she opposed the Iraq War even when it wasn't the fashionable option; she has an excellent record on civil liberties and, unlike manipulative Ed Balls, she has stated clearly that concerns about immigration were often "a proxy" for concerns about jobs, housing and poor pay.

The second is Ed Miliband.

When he first threw his hat into the ring, this blog dismissed him as yet another New Labour clone or the prototypical continuity candidate.

We were wrong. Credit when due, Ed Miliband is showing he's got the guts to make a clear break from Blair and Brown, acknowledging past mistakes as well as fighting his campaign on a range of policies that speak, factually, to ordinary people.

Unlike his brother, he fully admitted that the Iraq war was a mistake.

Unlike Ed Balls, he's refusing to use immigration and ethnicity as a convenient political scapegoat to dodge Labour's responsibility in issues such as labour casualisation, agency work and housing.

Above all, unlike his more senior rivals, Ed Miliband finally twigged that there are millions of people who are gagging for a party representing the interest of the low-paid and the most vulnerable. With pride - without triangulations, politicking and opportunism.

Aside from making the pitch in favour of a wage ratio between top and bottom salary in the workplace, Ed Miliband has made the fight for a Living Wage the centrepiece of his leadership campaign, making the most progressive statement coming from a mainstream Labour politician since the days of the minimum wage. On Wednesday, in an article penned for the Mirror, he wrote:

"Our party is worth nothing if it is not true to our values. Our values define who we are and who we stand up for. Our values led us to victory in 1997 - when we promised a minimum wage, smaller class sizes, and a windfall tax to help the young find work.

There is something wrong with a society where nurses earn less in a year than bankers - whose botched deals caused the credit crunch - pay themselves every week. It would take a low paid worker at a top company 80 years to earn what their boss makes in a single year in the boardroom.

The gap between rich and poor matters morally because it touches our deepest sense of justice. It matters because across the world, more unequal societies have higher crime rates, more mental illness and more social problems. And it matters for our economy. The credit crunch shows what happens when it is too easy for bankers to earn a fast buck from deals that go rotten just after they have pocketed their cash. So we need to act".

For the Labour Party, it's the last chance to do so.

Letter to Sunny Hundal

On the suprising support lent by Liberal Conspiracy to Ed Balls' attack on immigration.

Dear Sunny,

Ed Balls' piece in the Observer two days ago seems to have caused a bit of a stir.

In a nutshell, his point was: we were wrong to allow so many Eastern Europeans into Britain; we should revise the free movement of labour and keep it one way only (1m Brits can live and work in Europe, but not the reverse); his government, Labour, was wrong in a) both not placing restrictions on new EU states and b) not implementing the agency workers directive.

James Macintyre and Mehdi Hasan in the New Statesman dismissed Balls' "tough rhetorical stance" on the grounds that "[e]vidence -- from the BNP's trouncing, the fact that the Tories had the same 'cap' policy and lost in 2005, and the fact that even Mrs Duffy's seat was retained by Labour -- suggests this is a bit of an easy myth".

Others have noted how unfeasible it all looks that Balls is suddenly laying into entire chunks of 13 years in power while he seemed to be happily going along with it all until May 7 (he recently claimed he wasn't really pro-Iraq war too - and don't give me that "collective responsibility" stuff because Balls wasn't even in the cabinet in 2003 - he was free to speak).

I'm sure you will agree that it's baffling when an aspiring Labour leader get his words praised by Balanced Migration and even Stormfront (links not provided), whereas even the Conservatives ("on immigration Ed Balls is to the right of Enoch Powell"), the Spectator ('Balls: we have to be more bigoted') and the Daily Mail ("shameless hypocrisy") found his words ranging from opportunistic to altogether wrong.

But what I found most disheartening was the argument you put forward on your blog Liberal Conspiracy, an important voice in the left-of-centre "blogosphere" (god I hate that word, blogosphere).

For some reason, you appear to be giving Ed Balls a fantastically easy ride ('Why I'm defending Ed Balls over immigration').

Yet when only two weeks ago another leadership hopeful, Andy Burnham, spelt out concepts not dissimilar to those now backed by Ed Balls' ("Our priorities were not [the white working classes'] priorities: [...] we were in denial about the effects of immigration - on wages, housing and anti-social behaviour - in places where life is hardest", said Burnham), you dismissed it all with sarcasm and exclamation marks:

"Mr Burnham will be radically different from everyone else by having a one-issue campaign. Immigration! The issue no-one talks about. The issue that Phil Woolas did not constantly bang on about. Talking about immigration will bring back voters and help Burnham take back the country!".

It reminds me of Arsene Wenger when he complains that Man Utd players' tackles were out of order, but he's fine when his own do exactly the same.

Andy Burnham bad, Ed Balls good. And why is that?

"Because", you explained, "I think we have to accept we lost the debate on immigration and do something about it. We failed in pushing a coherent and positive narrative during all those years and now have a situation where the public is very right-wing on the issue. [...] We can't afford to ignore people's perceptions whether we like them or not".

You get that? You lose a political argument, so you may as well start agreeing with the "winning" side.

Just think if that applied to every aspect of politics. Like, the British public have consistently supported the death penalty over many years as the best way to combat crime. Does it mean we should concede defeat and look sympathetic with "public perceptions", or shall we still reject calls for the introduction of death row because we believe they're wrong?

Or...Those old enough to remember will note how, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, Tories and assorted supporters of Section 28 would routinely dismiss the pro-LGBT argument by saying that public opinion was simply hostile to same-sex relationships. It was true. Opinion polls at the time did not leave ground to interpretation. But we didn't give up the fight because we were a minority.

For, call me thick, but there is a simple, unanswered question here: are Ed Balls' words to be backed for reasons of PR - that is to say, so that the left doesn't look like it's ignoring "people's perceptions" - or because they make for good, honest, coherent policy? Is Balls right because his (newly adopted) principles are right, or simply out of political expediency? Do we believe in them, or do we just go along because we're tired of fighting an uphill struggle with a tabloid-led rhetoric that has started to seep through society?

There is a fallacy the size of the Gulf of Mexico in your line of reasoning, Sunny. You later commented:

"The changed reality is that we lost the debate on immigration because of the lack of political courage on behalf of politicians and because the left didn’t have a narrative on this either. We avoided the issue and now it’s become an albatross".

So, on one side you criticise the "lack of political courage" (presumably to point out that what the left needed to do was to tackle the problems for which people blame immigrants rather than the immigrants). On the other, the moment the issue becomes "an albatross", we should just somersault the other way and go along with a bit of Eastern European-bashing because it chimes, apparently, with "people's perceptions".

You wrote that "[J]ust screaming racist everytime a politician talks about it is not getting us anywhere and frankly I’m getting sick of that too".

But no-one said Balls was being "racist". Why are you saying that? I don't think anyone, for a second, believes he was being "racist". Opportunistic, maybe. Unprincipled, possibly. A hypocrite, surely. But racist? That's a red herring, my friend.What next? Are you going to say that "immigration is a taboo subject" too?

Those, like me, who are shocked by Balls' road-to-damascus conversion do so not on the basis of "racism", but because we think it's unfeasible, it's wrong, it's ill-conceived.

If Balls really wanted to "reconnect" with traditional Labour voters he could, for example, go further than just pay lip-service to "the agency workers directive" that, lest we forget, only six months ago he himself contributed to rejecting.

He could endorse Jon Cruddas' analysis of how endemic casualisation has led to a race to the bottom in the workplace. He could look at the central issue of affordable housing.

He could choose to go the Ed Miliband way, making the living wage "central to his campaign" or calling for the introduction of "wage ratios" between top and bottom salaries in the work place.

Because, fundamentally, these are the battles that nobody is fighting. There are plenty of parties, groups and newspapers setting migrant workers against British workers as they advocate that there are "too many immigrants" taking our jobs and depressing wages.

But very few arguing loud and clear that, if only working people were paid properly and were handed back appropriate protection in their work contracts, the issue of immigration would probably eventually self-regulate.

Until the root of the problem is addressed - the fact that in this country it is possible to pay people a non-living wage, sack them on a whim and hand them an existence cut out of job insecurity - tuning in to the dog whistle politics of "too much immigration" will just remain that: dog whistle politics.

Ed Balls sets new standards for the meaning of hypocrisy

Why the wannabe Labour leader has the coherence of a spraying hosepipe.

This is a man who sat at the core of the whole New Labour project. He was part of the inner circle since 1994. He went along with whatever was agreed. He made significant contributions to all aspects of government policy.

Now Ed Balls has decided to involve himself in a game of triangulations, positioning and politicking so pathetic that, compared to him, even Tony Blair would look more genuine.

Two weeks ago he came out with the revelation that Britain was "wrong" to join the Iraq war, without a shred of dignity or a passing thought that he would just be viewed as a spineless opportunist.

Like Mark Steel commented in the Independent, Balls could herald a new Labour tradition, that of opposing wars after they've ended: "Even a month ago [Balls and Miliband] said nothing, so they've all just changed their minds, have they?", wrote the comedian.

That was about Iraq. But Balls didn't stop there. His article in today's Observer is further proof that this second generation New Labourite only believes in two things: hypocrisy and opportunism.

Probably aware that his chances to become Labour leader are getting slimmer by the minute, Gordon Brown's economic adviser decided to raise his profile by turning to the Daily Mail brand of populism and cynicism - that is playing workers off against each other.

Essentially, Balls is calling for an end to the free movement of labour within the EU.

"We were wrong to allow so many Eastern Europeans into Britain", he writes. "Europe's leaders need to revisit the Free Movement Directive, not to undermine the union, but to make it economically and politically sustainable". Those words alone set him automatically to the right of the Tory party on immigration.

Balls, however, went further. Look at this staggering piece of hypocrisy, arrogance and subconscious post-colonial instinct:

"While it is true that one million British people do migrate to work in the rest of Europe, they are more likely to be working for higher wages in Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan than undercutting unskilled wages in the poorer parts of Europe."

This argument is infinitely worse than what you hear from the likes of UKIP. Because at least UKIP has the coherence and the intellectual honesty to argue in favour of Britain pulling out of the EU altogether. Instead, Balls' opinion is not just flawed, it's obnoxious.

1. Apparently it's ok for the British to take other people's jobs, the good ones in fact, but it's not ok for other people to take our jobs, even the shit ones. One rule for us and another for everyone else. Proper School of Post-colonialism;

2. Balls also displays a worrying lack of perception which, for an aspiring leader, is very bad news. Leave aside the crass sweeping generalisation that Brits in the EU work "for higher wages in Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan", as if they were all investment bankers, market analysts or fashion gurus - which is total balls (I know, I couldn't help it). Balls is totally unaware of the impact that significant chunks of the million British people living in the EU are having on certain areas;

3. Entire provinces in Spain have seen property prices hugely distorted by the high influx of hundreds of thousands of Brits in the past ten years. Not only have locals often been priced out of the property market, but the strain on public services has been significant, especially as thousands of Brits don't bother to register with the local councils, with the result that allocated funding to local hospitals and services doesn't correspond to the actual local needs.

There's also a final atrocity in Balls' article. Exactly like with Iraq, the wannabe Labour leader spews up eye-watering levels of hypocrisy when he writes that immigration undercutting unskilled wages was made "worse" by "the failure of our government to get agreement to implement the agency workers directive"(!).

Another Road-to-Damascus conversion. How do you call that? Cheek? Nerve?

On the TUC blog Owen Tudor just stopped at "chutzpah":

"What [...] the trade union movement argued all along – for over a decade - was that, with labour market regulation like the agency workers directive and the posted workers directive, migration would not set worker against worker, allow employers to undercut existing terms and conditions (regardless of the nationality of the victims), or lead to a downward spiral of wages".

Ed Balls sat at the core of the Labour government which, just over six months ago, took the active decision not to implement the agency workers directive, leaving 1.3 million workers in the most precarious and vulnerable situation.

Quite simply, there is enough evidence to suggest that Ed Balls is all over the place. He's got the coherence of a spraying hosepipe and, to quote the excellent Paul Sagar, "he comes across like a slimy, self-satisfied, mendacious and slippery political manipulator".

Make him Labour leader and the Tories are guaranteed half a century in office.

More bad news for Labour: Cruddas pulls out

Nobody, outside the ivory tower of professional party politics, think tanks, academia or journalism, seriously believes that the Milibands or Ed Balls will go down well with the public at large.

Jon Cruddas is a popular backbench Labour MP who doesn't come from a posh background, who went to a comprehensive, who speaks like a fairly ordinary human being and who never served in any New Labour government.

He just published the most enlightening and progressive article in a national newspaper.

Refreshingly, it was a far cry from the hollow, uninspiring stuff laid out by the two Milibands in the past few days (see here and here), showing empathy with the masses of 21st century low and low/middle classes: manual workers, people on low pay, people plagued by job insecurity.

Can you believe it, here's an MP actually publicly accusing Labour's high ranks of taking the "decision not to better regulate for agency workers, and to not introduce living wage agreements".

Cruddas also mentioned the great ghost of the election campaign, the housing crisis ("but it hasn't been the crisis of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, where one's biggest problem is achieving a dream sale price. It has been a crisis of cramped living conditions where family life is undermined. It has been a crisis of waiting lists that suck the hope from a young couple looking for stability"), and the fact that "[i]mmigration has been used as a 21st-century incomes policy" for the benefit of "rogue employers looking to shave costs to make a bigger buck".

But here comes the bad news. His article could have been the best platform to launch a leadership bid.

Unfortunately, instead, in the same article Cruddas stated clearly that he's not going to run ("Hand on heart I do not want to be Labour leader"), which is a massive disappointment for Labour and the left in general.

For the life of me, I can't understand how anybody outside the ivory tower of professional party politics, think tanks, academia or journalism, could seriously believe that any of the Milibands or Ed Balls may actually go down well with the public at large.

It's a sad indictment of the state of Labour that those three are the best the party can offer after 13 years in power.

Where now for Labour?

Another leader coming from the robotic, bureauspeaking, professional-politician inner core of New Labourism would finish the party off for good.

After 13 long years in power, and what looks now like a totally different political landscape, it's time for Labour to start all over again.

And while the Lib/Con coalition is looking shaky right from the start, Labour should not take it for granted that a few months or years in opposition will automatically return them power.

While the Blair years produced an unprecedented three consecutive election victories, the overwhelming popular impression became that the party was clinging on to power for power's sake - with Blair and the New Labourite clique cutting increasing bits of ground from the party's feet.

For a start, like this blog advocated just over two years ago, Tony Blair (and Gordon Brown to a lesser degree) gradually chipped away at Labour's reason to exist. Today, Labour is left with little ground of its own.

Two or three examples. Imagine the new government increasing tuition fees (which they will). Labour will have no credibility to oppose it in the Commons. Because not only did they introduce top-up fees but, with a notorious about turn on a manifesto pledge, they also tripled them.

Iain Duncan Smith in charge of Work and Pensions seems - in spite of what rose-tinted-spectacle-wearing Lib Dems may say - a truly scary prospect. But the memory of James Purnell in charge of "welfare reforms" is also too fresh for Labour to take any moral high ground.

Or imagine new anti-terrorism laws and curtailment of freedom in the wake of, god forbid, a terrorist attack. After thirteen years of one draconian measure after the other, any opposition coming from the Labour Party benches would look like a joke.

And so on.

The good news is that, with the Liberal Democrats jumping in bed with the Tories, there is at the very least one million voters (roughly the numbers that Labour lost to the LibDems since the days of Iraq and tuition fees) squandered by Nick Clegg's new course that could prove crucial for Labour's future electoral success.

But, in order for Labour to woo them back, a clear break with the past is absolutely essential. The party is in desperate need of fresh leadership: people who are able to effectively oppose the new government without the embarrassing burden of having sat at the core of thirteen years of Blairism and Brownism.

Take, for instance, a new Labour leader apologising for the Iraq war, saying that it was a bad mistake never to be repeated. It was one of Barack Obama's winning cards. Can you imagine the energy it would re-ignite on the centre-left?

Which is why the prospect of someone like David Miliband as leader is the worst possible mistake, and one that could actually finish the party off for good on two grounds.

One, presentationally, as good chunks of the electorate (and most progressive voters) have had enough of disconnected, patronising, professional "think tank" politicians waffling in bureauspeak (which New Labour's Cabinet was stuffed with).

Two, factually: David Miliband has been a senior partner throughout the entire New Labour project, presiding over and actively defending some of their worst decisions.

Widely described as a firm "Blairite", Miliband would hardly represent an alternative to Cameron and Clegg, with the added deficiency of being spectacularly uncharismatic.

The same can be said of Ed Balls, or Milband's little brother Ed. The latter's younger age means he didn't have enough time to be associated with New Labour's machinations in full. Still though, we're talking about the difference of a rizla in terms of policies, with the added worrying factor that Ed Miliband's leadership bid was stuffed with proto-Daily Mail drivel about immigration and unemployment. Again, we've already seen where that road leads when New Labour embarks on it.

I know that the last decade has meant a purge of Labour MPs from ordinary backgrounds (note I'm not using the expression "working class") but, quite simply, why can't Labour just elect someone normal? A person who's held an ordinary job. A person who speaks without sounding like a posh robot or a professional politician unable to give a yes or no answer. A person who doesn't come across as aloof, who doesn't do constant triangulations. Who can debate with balls, without fear that the Daily Mail-reading classes may not vote for them (they just wouldn't anyway!).

Have you noticed, also, that -during the election campaign- Labour's most effective tricks (and those they were constantly clinging on to) inevitably referred to their earlier period in power? The minimum wage, SureStart, LGBT legislation, tax credits.

Labour are at their most popular when they just get on with their own flagship policies and original beliefs without any fear or hesitation. Labour scrapped Section 28 and brought in civil partnerships against a sceptical public opinion. Now, society is overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT equality. It was a battle that Labour won hands down and made history, as even David Cameron conceded. The same can be said about the minimum wage.

This doesn't mean going for a far-left candidate (which is nevertheless brilliantly advocated for by blogger HarpyMarx). For better or for worse, that would never work electorally.

Yet an MP who's never served in the Cabinet, who has the humility to accept that the Iraq War was wrong, who's not interested in courting the right-wing tabloids and their illiberalism, and who can speak the language of most ordinary people...this type of person could seriously save the day.

I say John Cruddas is the best candidate for the Leadership of the Labour Party.

Blunkett, Labour and selective "principles"

David Blunkett, John Reid and others never frowned upon their party backing the most right-wing US President in history. They ditched all principles in order to cling onto power. But, as a deal with the Lib Dems is in sight, they're suddenly going apeshit.

And so here it is, this pathetic succession of "principled people" coming out against a deal for electoral reform: David Blunkett, Jon Reid, Tom Harris, Diane Abbot, Douglas Alexander and various other "senior" Labour figures.

They were quite happy to be pushed around, ordered about and whipped into submission over the biggest foreign policy blunder in recent history (the Iraq war bloodbath).

They didn't bat an eyelid when manifesto promise after manifesto promise was shunned from 1997 on (i.e. the railways, tuition fees, air traffic control, anti-union legislation, civil liberties, Lords reform and much more).

They didn't flinch when they voted in foundation hospitals or when Tony Blair ditched any remaining shred of dignity as he fawned over the most right-wing US President in history.

They were quite happy to follow the leader when, in an amazing display of contempt for democracy, the rules were changed for the 1999 Mayoral selection (so that Blair could handpick his Frank Dobson over Ken Livingstone).

Those Labour "personalities" kept their head down for as long as they could cling on to power.

Now, here they are. Their "principles" are suddenly impossible to compromise over electoral reform and a temporary deal with the Liberal Democrats. Absolutely shocking.

Six reasons not to vote Labour

Real change can only mean a vote for anyone but Labour or Tory* on May 6. Here's a quick reminder of what Gordon Brown and Tony Blair's party looks like.

1. The Nasty Party

Look at this appalling, borderline libellous leaflet circulating in Birmingham Hall Green, designed to smear their opponents as the defenders of convicted criminals and pederasts. This is straight from the book of tabloid barbarism at its worst, which the New Labour bullies have been generously perusing for 13 years.

2. The Economy
Barring this and this, the way Labour handled the economy for thirteen years has nowt to do with what most of their voters asked. Thatcher may have created the conditions for the UK economy being over reliant on the City, but thirteen years of Labour made it worse. While their rhetoric on welfare recipients got increasingly patronising, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. They had the chance to sort it out, they failed.

3. Think Tank politicians
The Tories may be packed with Etonians, but Labour is crammed with professional politicians straight from the ivory tower-world of "think tanks" and political research. Most of them have no idea what an ordinary job looks like. Think of all the time you heard New Labourite robots reciting pap like "tough times ahead" on TV or the radio, no matter what the interviewer asked. Do you really want 13 more years of that?

4. Reform
Labour had 13 years and unprecedented majorities to reform the House of Lords. They also actively and repeatedly turned their back on making the voting system fairer and less antiquated. In 2005, almost 3m votes going to none of the biggest parties were literally wasted. They translated into zero seats.

The Lib Dems were voted by 22% of the electorate but only got a measly 9% of seats. Labour grabbed 55% of the seats with just over 30% of the votes. This system is rotten at the core. Labour won't change it.

5. Civil Liberties
42-day detention laws. ID cards. Conditions in privatised detention centres. Suppression of dissent. The super draconian Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Rendition flights. Belmarsh. Labour has a terrifying record on civil liberties.

6. Foreign policy
One word: Iraq. Not a single senior Labour politician has yet conceded that the Iraq war was wrong. Not even a little bit, a tiny admission, a contrite face. Don't forget that on May 6.

*and the BNP of course

Coming up: Six reasons NOT to vote Conservative

Leaders debate across the papers

The verdict is unanimous: clear victory for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

"The Liberal Democrat leader was given a great opportunity to introduce himself to the millions of voters who scarcely knew him and he took it with gusto".
Nick Robinson, BBC News

"Nick Clegg seizes his moment in historic TV debate"- "A Populus poll for The Times gave a stunning victory to the Liberal Democrat leader as he used the limelight of the historic ITV broadcast to devastating effect".
Roland Watson, The Times

"Clegg smashes through two-party system".
Andrew Grice and Nigel Morris, The Independent

"Nick Clegg's star rises in great showdown"- "Nick Clegg emerged as the early winner of the first televised leaders' debate last night by successfully positioning himself as the Westminster outsider".
Robert Winnett and Andrew Porter, The Telegraph

"Clegg seizes moment in TV spotlight" - "Lib Dem leader makes powerful pitch as he depicts his party as a significant change from Labour and the Conservatives".
Patrick Wintour and Polly Curtis, The Guardian

"Brown beaten into third in debate"- "A YouGov snap poll for The Sun put the Lib Dem leader clearly ahead of his rivals, winning just over HALF the full vote".
Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun

"Clegg wins the TV war of words: Viewers are turned off by Brown's aggression but leaders fail to land knock-out blow"- "While the two main leaders clashed repeatedly, it was [...] Mr Clegg who seemed to have the advantage".
James Chapman, Daily Mail

2010 Election special: Labour

In the final instalment of our Pre-Election series, Bob Piper explains why the Labour Party is still worth your vote.

I am a Labour Party member, a socialist, a life-long trade unionist, and a Labour councillor, and over the next two months I will be tramping the streets with my comrades trying to persuade up to 10,000 people in my Ward to vote Labour on May 6th.

Why would we ask people to vote Labour? Not for war in the Middle East, 42-day detention, privatisation of public services and a continuing commitment to the nuclear arms race... that’s for sure.

Nor do I expect an incoming Labour Government to a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families. I wish it were so, but I am not that naive, and more importantly, neither are the electorate.

There is much in the Manifesto of the Green Party, and some within that of the Liberal Democrat Party that I can find resonance with, not to mention those of Respect and the Communist Party. One of my greatest regrets over the last decade is the loss of so many good socialists who have given up on Labour’s cause to join smaller parties or single issue groups.

But the reality is, Labour represents the best left-of-centre hope of defeating the Conservatives. Given our current electoral system a vote for the Greens or Respect is, in all but the most extreme circumstances, an electoral protest vote which will assist the Conservatives. I understand why people may wish to record their protest at the ballot box, but unlike many who are too young or whose memories are too short, I fully recall the devastation inflicted upon the working class in Britain by the Tories during the 1980s and 1990s.

So when people say that Labour hasn’t ended child poverty, or reduced the gap between the very richest and the poorest in our society, I agree, we have not done enough. But in 1996 I sat in a primary school building in one of the poorest boroughs in this country trying to finds ways in which we could mend the a leaking classroom roof without having to sack cleaning or catering staff. If my father was diagnosed with cancer, then he could be waiting up to 18 months for treatment in a hospital built as an extension to the workhouse in the nineteenth century. There was no minimum wage, no Surestart or Children’s Centres, and you could be sacked for being lesbian or gay with no comeback in law.

None of these things represent the ‘fundamental and irreversible’ transformation of society, and those of us who are socialists in the Labour Party know that only too well. Many people who now feel relatively comfortable economically will vote Conservative, or Liberal Democrat, and they will probably not even notice the changeover. However, for those people in our most deprived areas, those living on the margins, the differences will be all too real.

It is for those people that I will be saying, on May 6th, vote Labour.

Bob Piper is a Labour councillor in Sandwell, West Midlands. He blogs at bobpiper.co.uk

20 years of...Labour leaders

Who's been the best Labour leader in your opinion?

Neil "We're alright" Kinnock, 1983-1992

John Smith, 1992-1994

Tony "Teflon" Blair, 1994-2007

Gordon "Save the World" Brown, 2007-